How to Understand the Bible 3

The Neglected Spiritual Dimension To Bible Interpretation

Every Christian, simply by being a child of God, has access to truths that even great theologians might have missed

Part 3 of a Series About

How to Avoid Misinterpreting the Bible

Start at Part One

Let’s recap: we are exploring matters that are vital to all Christians, and easily understood by all. Even the newest Christian is engaged in the pursuit of biblical truth. We all use hermeneutics (methods of interpreting the Bible) even though most of us never use the word.

The emphasis in most Bible schools and seminaries tends to be on teaching methods of interpreting the Word that anyone can use, regardless of whether the person has any spiritual connection to God or is even pagan or atheistic. This is no criticism of theological institutions. The techniques taught are important and could be called basic or rational hermeneutics. We simply need to understand that there is more to Bible interpretation than this.

As children, we learned to read. This has proved a most valuable skill that we continually draw upon when studying Scripture. Some of us learned to read in a Christian school. Most of us learned in secular schools. It makes no difference, because an ability to read has nothing to do with one’s relationship with God. What we could call basic hermeneutics is like that. It could be taught just as effectively in a secular college as in a theological institution. It’s a valuable skill that we should be using all the time when studying the Bible.

But just as one can read the Bible well, without truly understanding it, so one can skillfully employ basic hermeneutics and not understand the spiritual truths of the Bible. The danger is that the more highly trained someone is, the more he might fool himself into thinking he understands a Scripture, when he is actually completely missing or misunderstanding much of the divine message. No matter how great his intellect, when a non-Christian encounters spiritual truths, “ . . . he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Corinthians 2:14).

That sounds spooky. We who pride ourselves on our intellect can find it so offensive that we reject the possibility of there being things the finest human minds cannot grasp without a spiritual transformation. It almost takes a divine miracle just to gain the faintest inkling as to why understanding spiritual truth is beyond the grasp of the unaided human mind.

What would it be like to experience the sensations a lizard feels when it detects a sexually desirable lizard or a delicious cockroach? No matter how much ingenious research we did, trying to figure out what it feels like to be a lizard would remain mostly guesswork and we’ll never know how off the mark our presumptions are. The only way to perceive things as a lizard does, is if, for a while at least, we had the mind of a lizard. And even if offered that opportunity, some of us would find the offer too scary to accept.

This is like the impossibility we face in trying to understand spiritual truth. It is something so foreign to human experience that no matter how great our intelligence and how deeply we ponder and analyze it, we cannot perceive things as God perceives them without undergoing a transformation of mind-boggling proportions. The sheer impossibility is reflected in Paul’s almost nonsensical prayer about God’s love:

Ephesians 3:17-19 . . . I pray that you . . . know this love that surpasses knowledge

Learning facts will never do. We cannot understand as God understands without a supernatural transference of God’s mind/nature to our mind. This life-changing experience does not come in a one-off explosive burst, wrecking every neural connection in our brain. It comes one staggering revelation a time throughout the life of everyone who is in intimate union with the divine. It is an on-going process that we can stop or hinder at any moment.

This is why Peter urges Christians to grow in the grace and knowledge of Christ (2 Peter 3:18). Paul, too, speaks of “growing in the knowledge of God,” (Colossians 1:10) and tells his readers they “have put on the new self, which is being renewed [note the tense] in knowledge in the image of its Creator (Colossians 3:10). Here’s a fascinating promise:

Isaiah 54:13 All your sons will be taught by the LORD . . .

The promise is not merely that all will have access to Scripture. As important as access to the Bible is, it is like the excitement of being given a seat on a jumbo jet, only to discover that the plane has no pilot. As a telephone is dead unless someone speaks to us through it, so is Scripture, unless God speaks to us through it. Our great need is to be taught by the Lord, as the above Scripture promises. The Almighty usually does this through Scripture, but it is something he must do. If, rather than being taught by God, we are self-taught, we will inevitably miss vital spiritual truths, no matter how diligently we study the Bible.

Proverbs 28:26 He who trusts in himself is a fool . . .

The same is true about looking to human teachers, rather than the Lord:

Isaiah 2:22 Stop trusting in man, who has but a breath in his nostrils. . . .

Matthew 16:17 Jesus replied, "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven. . . .”

In the previous two webpage's (which should be read first – please start here) we began exploring the factors determining our receptivity to divine empowerment to discern spiritual truth. Having commenced this fascinating and critical subject, we now need to uncover still more spiritual factors affecting one’s ability to understand the Bible.

Elsewhere on this vast website I have written much in which I needed to use Scripture to discern God’s heart on various subjects. Sometimes when writing on these matters I thought it helpful to explain various principles I had had to draw upon in order to have any chance of “rightly dividing the word of truth.” So although most of this series of webpage's about Bible interpretation is new, there are occasional quotes or adaptations from portions of my other webpage's, here compiled to bring together some of the many factors that affect our ability to discern spiritual truth in the Bible. The following section is one such instance.

You Can Find Truths Missed by Theologians

We mentioned earlier that the need for this series of webpage's becomes frighteningly obvious when we consider the degree to which Christians differ on doctrine and Bible interpretation. What is so disturbing is that these matters divide not just new Christians or worldly Christians or uninformed Christians. We are tempted to think poorly of anyone who disagrees with us, but if we dare look with godly eyes we will find Christians worthy of our highest esteem passionately believing opposite things. We might not know who is wrong, but clearly some of them must be. They cannot all be right! This sends us crashing to the humbling – even scary – reality that whenever we seek to understand such topics we are daring to confront a matter on which numbers of truly great men and women of God have got it wrong.

It is tempting to think that if God allows this divergence of opinion among even the most spiritual and knowledgeable Christians on earth, it must be because the matter is unimportant. If this were so, however, it becomes perhaps even more confusing. It would mean that so many fine Christians on both sides are wrong in thinking it is important.

If people more spiritual, knowledgeable, experienced and gifted than ourselves have somehow missed the truth, who are we to get it right? The thought seems enough to send us reeling into defeatism. We feel the same way when hearing the crushing news of a great Christian having a moral fall. If such a person could fall, what chance do we have? Nevertheless, there is one truth with the power to lift us out of defeatism: no matter how much Christians may differ in giftedness, causing some to seem superior to us, everyone without exception is equally dependent upon the grace of God for the understanding of spiritual truth and for every spiritual step we take. Some of us can leap higher than others but it makes no difference in a quest to reach the moon. To leave earth’s gravity, each of us, no matter how athletic or disabled, are equally dependent upon a power outside of us – a spacecraft. Likewise, in reaching heavenly truth, human advantages or disadvantages make little difference. All that matters is our willingness to yield to a power greater than any of us – the grace of God.

If anyone could be mistaken, it’s me. But if anyone can reveal the truth, it’s God. If it depended on us, we might have little hope, but since it depends on the grace of God, each of us has boundless reason for hope. If we can stop putting our faith in our devotion, experience, Bible skills and human teachers, and place our faith solely in the Almighty’s power to override all our inadequacies and penetrate our dull minds with his truth, then we have mastered two key factors in receiving divine revelation: humility (“The meek will he guide . . .” – Psalms 25:9), and all of our faith in the Almighty, none in our finite, easily deceived selves.

The obvious starting point for discovering God’s truth is, of course, a right relationship with God. The psalmist prayed for the miracle of supernatural insight into Scripture’s wonders (Psalm 119:18) but we cannot expect divine answers while unrepentant sin hinders our relationship with God. “If I had cherished sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened” (Psalm 66:18). “But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear” (Isaiah 59:2). Sin must be removed by us trusting in Jesus’ cleansing and by genuinely wanting that cleansing. We are genuine only to the extent that we passionately long for purity and for devoted obedience to our Lord.

Another essential for accurate Bible interpretation is to have such a driving passion to receive the truth from God that we rival the mother of the demonized child who kept refusing to be put off from her quest to receive from Jesus the longing of her heart. Our Lord “rewards those who earnestly seek him” (Hebrews 11:6).

Seeing Through God’s Eyes

When Jesus said, “You of little faith, why are you so afraid?” (Matthew 8:26) did he roar the words with terrifying, spirit-withering fury? Did his eyes fill with tears or tender compassion? Could the disciples detect a wounded expression on his face or in his voice? Was there a twinkle in his eye or a faith-inspiring hint of a smile? The disciples often had enormous difficulty in understanding what Jesus was saying and yet they had access to invaluable non-verbal information that has been stripped from the accounts we are left with in Scripture. How much harder our task is!

To fully understand the Bible we need information that only God has. Our one hope of regaining what is lost is to be so filled with the Spirit of God and walking so close to the Lord that we know his heart.

Despite the priceless opportunity to read Jesus’ non-verbal signals, the disciples’ often got it wrong because they were not able to read Jesus’ mind. The ideal would be not just to read Christ’s mind but to open the Bible and read with Christ’s mind. Imagine being able to read the Gospels with Jesus’ understanding and insight into those events; feeling what he felt, seeing what he saw, and knowing what he knows. That would be the ultimate in knowing precisely what Jesus meant.

This is no pipe dream:

1 Corinthians 2:16 “For who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him?” . . . We feel like plunging into defeatism again. What chance has anyone with a three figure IQ to understand the infinite Mind? How can we, with eyes fogged by selfishness, prejudice, self-justification and impurity, see as God sees? There’s no possibility for those not spiritually connected to the Lord. Yet for us, the verse continues in the most thrilling, staggering manner:

But we have the mind of Christ.

Access to the mind of Christ is the right of everyone in genuine relationship with Christ. The outworking of this, however, is a progressive experience that requires our cooperation. This is why Paul had to urge Christians: Philippians 2:5 Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus (KJV)

Had this been automatic for Christians, Paul would not have had to mention it. Again, he told Christians: Romans 12:2 Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

And he reminded other Christians:

Ephesians 4:22-23 You were taught . . . to be made new in the attitude of your minds

We have the mind of Christ to the extent that we have died to selfishness and let Christ live his life through us and think his thoughts through us.

“Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus” refers not to academic knowledge but to a radically changed, otherworldly mindset even to the extreme of willingly submitting to voluntary suffering for the glory of God (Philippians 2:5-8).

“ be transformed by the renewing of your mind” is prefaced by, “offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God” (Romans 12:1).

This is worthy of careful reading:

Ephesians 4:17-24 So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking. They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, with a continual lust for more. You, however, did not come to know Christ that way. Surely you heard of him and were taught in him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus. You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.

The Bible is divinely designed to be understood only by people indwelt by the very Spirit who experiences the actual feelings and deepest secrets of God. Please read this prayerfully:

1 Corinthians 2:6-13 We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. No, we speak of God’s secret wisdom, a wisdom that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. However, as it is written: “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him” – but God has revealed it to us by his Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God.

For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man’s spirit within him? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us. This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words. The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.

Although every Christian has the Spirit of God, our ability to grasp biblical truth is proportional to our willingness to let the Spirit have his way in our thoughts and actions. Scripture provides a practical way of measuring how much the Spirit is illuminating our understanding:

Galatians 5:16 So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. We are filled with the same Spirit who inspired Scripture, to the degree to which we are victorious over fleshly or selfish desires. Lack of temptation is not a measure of our walk with the Lord. What counts is not what assaults us, but whether we resist.

What hope have we of seeing as God sees if lust, bitterness, greed, envy or any other ungodly attitude clouds our eyes? How much we see as God sees depends on how much we yield to God’s longing to kill every ungodly attitude within us. Dying to self is far more exciting and fulfilling than we dare hope. There is a valuable link about this at the end of this series of webpage's.

No matter how much we study the Bible, we cut ourselves off from biblical revelation to whatever extent that the Spirit of God is not having full sway in our lives.

We let the Spirit rule in our lives and understanding by, wherever there is conflict, trashing human wisdom and treasuring God’s wisdom; despising our own wishes and delighting in God’s will; killing ungodly desires and birthing godly ones. This is not attained by human effort. It is a divine miracle. Almighty God manifests his love, however, by not abusing his fearsome power by forcing godly attitudes upon us. Instead, the King of kings waits for our cooperation.

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